Monday, 27 March 2017

Maestro Alessandro Alessandroni dies at 92

I was saddened to receive confirmation this morning that composer
Alessandro Alessandroni has died in Rome at the age of 92. Not only an
established composer in his own right, Alessandroni was also hugely
respected and adored among the Eastwood community as working alongside Ennio
Morricone and for famously providing that signature whistling that peppered
those wonderful western scores.

As a tribute, I have decided to post the English translation from the
Italian news network repubblica.it. I have also made a couple of minor adjustments
to avoid confusion as a result of that translation.

"It's very simple. I [received]
a phone call (from) Ennio Morricone [who] said: 'Sandra, come on down for a
moment, in the room [studio], you need to make a fischiatina' (a whistle). Well, it was
really a fischiatina, nothing more, but think about what it is happened next
... When we saw the film, I have to admit that no one thought that would make any
money. “Instead, the 'fischiatina' really did change everything. Alessandro
Alessandroni, the Master - it is right to call it - says the opening words of
the most famous of his career and most iconic piece of Western movies, that for
a fistful of dollars, made up of Morricone, which made the films of Sergio
Leone - and practically all the best western movie - even bigger. The composer, conductor and
arranger Alessandro Alessandroni died in Rome, the city that March 18th, 1925
gave birth, March 26. He had just turned 92 years. The announcement came on the
official Facebook page of the composer: "It is with great sorrow that I
inform you of the death yesterday maestro Alessandro Alessandroni born in Rome
on March 18, 1925, composer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and choir
conductor. It will be a memorial service at home in Namibia with music and
musicians directed by his son Alex Jr. Alessandroni ".

Alessandroni approached music
when he was still a boy. At the time he lives in the mother country, in the
province of Viterbo. He was 11 years old and listened insistently, whenever he
could to classical music. He began playing the guitar with assistance from a
friend. The site is one of those details. He told in an interview to the blog
Planet Hexacord : "I started in the barber shop, because in small
countries is a reference point: there were the instruments, the guitar, the
mandolin. They worked a little, but they played a lot. .. ". While he is
attending the last year of high school he formed his first ensemble, with which
he toured for local and dance halls. Fast to learn in a short time become
proficient in several instruments, alternating during her performances: a
teenager is already able to play the guitar, the piano, the accordion, sax,
flute, mandolin and sitar, one of the first Italians to try their hand in this
complex stringed instrument. Obtained diploma at the Conservatory in Rome, find
a job in the film production company Fonolux There he meets the great Nino
Rota, his senior by 14 years, who wants him in his orchestra. Then came the
whistle. It was almost by accident. Alessandroni, at some point, when volunteers
Rota needs a reason booed. Whistling become its new tool to play with and one
of the characterizing moments spaghetti western soundtracks. Music in effect:
"My whistle parts are on the staff," explained Alessandroni,
"and woe to miss the pitch, to make mistakes." The thought also
Federico Fellini, author of his soprannonme: Alessandroni for him was simply
"The Whistle".

In 1962 he founded the octet I
Cantori Moderni, a formation of his previous group, the Caravels Quartet. With
them - the band is formed by soprano Edda Dell'Orso, Augusto Giardino, Franco
Cosacchi, Nino Gods, Enzo Gioieni, Gianna Spagnuolo and, not least, the wife of
Alessandroni Giulia De Mutiis.

The most important co-operation
and long life of Alessandroni remains today the one with Ennio Morricone:
besides the famous whistle for A Fistful of Dollars will also work in For a Few
Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Alessandroni is called by all
the most important Italian composers of the time, in the sixties, such as Piero
Umiliani, for which sings with his wife Julia in fantastic reason Mah-mah-nà nà
, extracted from the soundtrack of Sweden, hell and paradise of Luigi Scattini
(1968) and with the master Armando Trovajoli.

With the arrival of the
seventies, the ARC of the RCA, the label dedicated to the 'young Italian song',
between beats and 'world exotico', a disc-public collection of twelve songs in
the race edition of 1969 Canzonissima. They are recorded, of course, in an
instrumental version and work on the Hammond organ solo is credited to Ron
Alexander, his pseudonym.

The name of Alessandroni had
become of worship across the board, had crossed generations and musical styles,
and especially among library music lovers. Among the last to want it in their
record Baustelle, group of Montepulciano, who chose him for one of their best
albums. "Alessandro Alessandroni is the oldest guest," explained
Francesco Bianconi, the singer, "a wonderful eighty-four that we did play
the sitar, accordion, acoustic guitar and we did blow the whistle". The
song title, not surprisingly, was Spaghetti Western - The album, Amen.

RIP Maestro – our thoughts and condolences are with the Alessandroni
family.